Does Not Suffice
by Problem Child1
Summary: Colin smiled at her, an action so rare she had to smile back, and pulled her in for another kiss. In retrospect, she should have ran.  Stephanie/Colin/Finn triangle


Disclaimer: Everything goes to Amy Sherman-Palladino. "Does Not Suffice" is by Joanna Newsom.

A/N: Well, I sure do love my secondary characters. I've been sitting on this one for a while, but here it is. I suggest listening to the song "Does Not Suffice," which the story is named for, if you want to get the feel of what my inspiration was while I was writing this. It's a... different kind of story. But thus is life.

Stephanie had shitty taste in guys. She couldn't deny it, as much as she wanted to, because it was true. She even had a shittier taste in guys than Rory Gilmore did – and that was saying something. Stephanie wasn't just judging her off of the whole Logan debacle, though it wouldn't be unjustified because who in their right mind would want anything serious with Logan "Hugh Hefner is My Personal Hero" Huntzberger? But it was more than that, as she and Rory had actually gotten kind of close, so eventual talking of their ex-boyfriends had come up, and some of Rory's former beaus made her relationship look downright Norman Rockwell.

Except it wasn't. It wasn't normal, that was. No All-American wedding in this girl's future. No wedding in the Vineyard and sailing and all that crap. Because Stephanie was dating Colin. And Colin was dating Finn.

Wasn't that just grand?

When Stephanie and Colin started dating, it had been all kinds of casual. And with both of them in college still and busy with their own lives, they'd barely seen each other more than once or twice a week. Colin's parents had been thrilled with the match, of course, deeming Stephanie part of the family almost immediately. She sometimes suspected they liked her more than Colin did.

As the months wore on, Stephanie got closer to Rory Gilmore. They would go out for drinks or meet for coffee, and Stephanie would listen to how either Logan was an ass or a prince that week. And Stephanie would respond with her tales of how Colin was an ass almost always, but it was okay because it was so super casual and who was she fooling with that stupid line?

In the beginning, she didn't know anything about Colin's other life. Sure, they all made jokes about how Colin and Finn were nearly inseparable, but she thought that was all they were – jokes. But the closer she got to Colin, the more Finn started to come up with excuses as to why he couldn't go out that night with them. She thought nothing of it, it's not like she was going out every night with them and maybe Finn really did have a legitimate reason to not go out those nights. It was still a little suspicious though.

Before they went out one night, Stephanie had come over to Colin's apartment for a little pre-dinner making out when she casually asked about it.

"How come Finn always pulls a Houdini whenever we're all going out?" It was an innocent question, or so she thought, but the way Colin froze up when she asked that made her start to worry. "Does he not like me? I always thought we got along before that."

And he took her hands in his and looked her in the eye and for one of the first times since they started dating, she saw him be completely serious. It scared her. "I have something to tell you. I'm bi."

She almost started laughing. "Okay? So? Is Finn your boyfriend or something?"

"Or something," he replied uneasily. "We've been casually seeing each other for a while."

"And he's bi too? But you two are still out on the town like you're the Butabi brothers."

Colin nodded in confirmation. "It's kind of like we're wingmen with benefits. Whether or not we score at the bar, we're still getting laid that night."

"That's almost a joke!" Stephanie mockingly exclaimed. "Have you rehearsed that?"

Colin laughed. "It's very close to a joke. You can't tell anyone about us though. I'm trusting you. Our parents would kill us if they found out." When she didn't reply as she just absorbed this information, he hurried on to say, "Don't worry, I still like you the same. I didn't tell you because I wasn't sure how you'd handle it and I didn't want you to break up with me over something like this."

It was the sweetest thing he'd ever said to her in their four months of dating and three years of being friends, so she pulled him into a kiss. "I wouldn't break up with you over something like that. It's actually kind of sexy. Very Elton and Darrin of you." She did laugh this time. "And besides, I'm the one who said we should be casual, remember?" Colin smiled at her, an action so rare she had to smile back, and pulled her in for another kiss.

In retrospect, she should have ran.

A few more months passed and they all graduated. Logan went to London the day after graduation and Rory was a mess. She spent a lot of time in that tiny town of hers, but still met Stephanie at least once a week at the blond girl's request. Colin was continuing his education to become a lawyer at Yale, and Stephanie herself was putting her philosophy degree to good use by working in the public relations sector of her father's business.

It was mid summer when Colin began to call her more. At first it was two or three more times a week, before it was every day. And she became The Girlfriend quickly. Logan was the one who told her that Finn had gone by to Australia for an undetermined amount of time, but when she asked Colin about it he just kind of shrugged it off like it was no big deal.

They went to society gatherings and took trips and she hung out with his family and she unofficially moved in to his apartment and it dawned on her one day as they dragged themselves into their apartment at the crack of dawn from a night of partying that she was falling for him.

"What?" Rory snapped when Stephanie called her from the bathroom so Colin wouldn't hear her from the bedroom.

"I think I'm in love with Colin," she whispered urgently in the phone, then looked around as if someone had sneaked into their apartment and heard.

"Obviously," Rory replied and she yawned into the phone. "Anything else, or can I go back to sleep?"

"What do you mean, obviously? Is it that obvious? What am I going to do?"

"Call me at a more reasonable time to talk about this?" Rory suggested sarcastically.

"Be proactive, Gilmore," Stephanie snapped. "This is no time for jokes."

"Of course it isn't." Rory sighed. "Well, you should probably tell him."

"That's just dumb. Colin doesn't do 'feelings.' It's gonna freak him out. I should probably just hide it and we can go on just as we have been. We're happy together. We've hit a good groove."

"Then do that."

"Are you just saying anything I want to hear to get me off the phone?"

"Yes. Call me at a sane hour. Night, Steph." And Rory hung up on her.

Stephanie sighed and stared at her phone in the bathroom until she was sure Colin was asleep, then climbed into bed with him. She didn't run then, either. So many outs she could have taken.

The relationship progressed and they just had so much fun. They went on crazy adventures and he made her laugh and he brought her lunch at work and he was just so goddamn good in bed. If anyone would have told her when she first met Colin that this would be a guy she could see herself marrying, she would have told them that they should lay off the crack, because Colin McCrea: husband? That was just ridiculous. But there they were, enjoying their relationship to the fullest.

Colin figured it out, of course. He could read her so easily, which was one of the things that made him so great in bed. He made her admit it to him after a few drinks – drinking and showering were the two times that they had their most serious conversations – and then shouted about it gleefully.

"You love me," he sung to her.

She rolled her eyes and half-heartedly shoved his shoulder. "Shut up."

"I can't. Because you love me. You crazy, crazy bastard."

Even though she never thought he would say it back, in the back of her mind she hoped he'd reciprocate her feelings as she swung her around the kitchen and kissed her. It never came.

When Stephanie came to the startling conclusion that she had no urge to sleep with anyone but Colin, thus making their open relationship less open, she immediately told Colin, sure that he felt the same way about this subject.

"You know I'm bi, right?" he asked.

She nodded, unsure what this had to do with it. "Yes. So what you're saying is that you want this to continue to be an open relationship, even though I don't want to have sex with anyone else, and I know you haven't been with anyone else since Finn left."

"I don't think you understand. I really like you, but I need someone of both sexes. It's all fucked up, but I can't just date someone of one sex."

And Stephanie suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe. "What do you mean, can't? Like, you're physically incapable? Someone is putting a gun to your head and telling you that you can't do it?"

"No, someone isn't putting a gun to my head. You're twisting my words around." He lit a cigarette. "I can monogamous, I just don't want to."

"You don't want to?" she repeated doubtfully as she took a drag from his cigarette.

"There's just a part of me that needs to be with a guy as much as a girl. And if I'm with a girl, I begin to crave being with a guy. And vice versa. Please try to understand."

Tears shimmered in her eyes as she said, "Try to understand? You just basically told me that I'll never be enough for you. Believe it or not, but that kind of hurt. I know you're just this emotionless thing, I wouldn't expect you to understand something like that."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a robot. Real original, Steph." He rolled his eyes and finished off his cigarette. "I didn't say you weren't enough for me. They're not comparable. What I feel for you and what I feel for Finn are two different things."

"This is about Finn?" she asked.

"Well, kind of. He's the only guy I'm interested in, just like you're the only girl I'm interested in. This doesn't mean I like you any less." In a rare moment of compassion, he wrapped her up in his arms and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I really do like you, Stephanie."

"I know, I like you too. That's the problem." She laughed self-deprecatingly. "But why can't I be the only one you're in an emotional relationship with? The sleeping with other people, I get that. But why do you need this whole other emotional side of things with him? Am I not emotional enough for you? Why can't you just sleep with other people and not talk to them the next day like a normal person?"

"I can't do that with you or Finn. I need the emotional side with both of you." He sighed. "I know it sucks. I know that I'm never going to have a normal relationship with anyone. But I hope you get that being with Finn and being with you isn't comparable."

"You need to stop saying that word," she muttered.

"I don't really know any other way to put it."

"Maybe it's selfish of me, but I want to be the only one. I hate to admit it, but I kind of love you and sometimes I wish you felt the same about me." She wrapped her arms around his torso and let the tears that had gather up fall down her face.

"Don't cry," Colin whispered and he tilted her head up so he could lick her tears away. She laughed and pushed him away.

"That's so gross, Col," she muttered and wiped her cheeks once again.

"It made you laugh, didn't it?"

Stephanie sighed and relaxed back into his embrace. "Finn isn't coming back," she told him.

"You don't know that, Steph."

"Well, he isn't." She nestled further into his neck and he kissed the top of her head. "He isn't."

He did.

Of course he did. He came back and confirmed all of Stephanie's fears that she wasn't good enough and that Colin was just an asshole and nothing more.

"You're kicking me out?" she screamed at dinner. "For Finn?"

He'd cooked her a beautiful meal and lit some candles and told her that Finn was coming into town in a few days and that he was going to be staying with Colin. Perhaps she should go stay with Rory for a week or so, just so things wouldn't be awkward. It hadn't been a suggestion.

"For the last time, I'm not kicking you out. You'll come back. I just-" he looked down "I want to see him really badly."

"So you're kicking me out of our apartment for a 'week or so' so you can fondle him and not feel bad about doing it under my nose?" she screeched. "Is that what I'm getting from this?"

"You're not being very understanding," he told her.

"Fuck understanding! I don't want to be understanding, I want to not be kicked out of our apartment so you can blow your boyfriend on my sheets."

"Technically, it's my apartment, Stephanie." And like that, Colin's voice got cold and he was back to asshole, robot Colin. This was the Colin she knew, the one that everyone knew. "And if you want, you can take the sheets with you. I never told you to fall in love with me, that's your own problem. If you can't deal, you can't deal. I'm not dating you so you can control my life; I have enough of that from my father. This is my life, I get to say what goes on in my personal life, not you."

By now, tears were streaming down Stephanie's face. And he didn't bother to try and comfort her this time, or follow her as she got up angrily and threw her napkin on the table. "You're a dick," she hissed as she passed him and went into the bedroom to gather up a few things.

"Where are you going?" he called out to her when she put on her coat next to the door.

"Out," she replied curtly.

"You don't have to leave now, Finn isn't going to be here for another three days," he pointed out.

"Like you said, I can't deal." She slammed the door behind her and got in her car and cried all the tears she had before she called Rory and asked if she could crash for a few days.

Four days later, she stood in Colin's currently empty apartment for the last time and gathered up her things. Seeing Finn's clothes strewn about the floor almost made her dissolve into fresh tears, but she held it together somehow. Rory grabbed the last box of stuff and Stephanie unhooked the apartment key from her keyring and set it on the table.

She should have done this months ago. She should have ran before she was in over her head. But she didn't, and now she was crushed beyond belief. With a heavy sigh, she walked out of the apartment and left her life with Colin behind.

-Fin-

_I'll tuck away my gilded buttons  
I'll bind my silks in shapeless bales  
Wrap it all up in reams o' tissue  
And then I'll kiss you sweet farewell_

_You saw me rise to our occasion  
And so deny the evidence  
'Caused me to burn and twist and grimace against you  
Like something caught on a barbed wire fence_

_Now you can see me fall back here redoubled  
Full bewildered and amazed  
I have gotten into some terrible trouble  
Beneath your blank and rinsing gaze_

-_Does Not Suffice_, Joanna Newsom


End file.
